Compare and Contrast Frank Mccourt’s Stories

A young boy named Frank McCourt the age of nine is the main character of this story, “Typhoid Fever”. Told from his perspective, he explains his experiences of having typhoid fever in bed rest at a hospital in Ireland. While in the hospital, Frank gets to know a girl named Patricia, who is a patient in hospital for diphtheria. Disregarding the nun’s warnings, they continued to talk to each other and share poetry. In the middle of telling a poem, “The Highwayman”, the nun punishes them by putting Frank in a different room.

Soon after, Patricia dies without Frank ever hearing the rest of the poem. A nice, old janitor searches a local pub for the end of the poem and eventually tells Franks the very sad ending of the poem. Although “Education of Frank McCourt” also features Frank McCourt as the main character, this Frank McCourt is much older; being a middle- aged man. As an English teacher in the United States, Frank struggles to tell his students about his poverty and lack of education during his childhood in fear that they will think badly of him.

Teaching his students, he helps them to find their writing voices by recording them speak and writing it down. He gave them encouragement with phrases like, “Dig deeper. Dance your own dance. ” Later in his retirement, he finds that he needs to take his own advice when it comes to him writing his own book. All he had needed to do was pick up the pen. These two stories are both alike and unalike in several ways. Firstly, like most stories, both stories involve the main character dealing with a struggle.

While in “Typhoid Fever” Frank is dealing with his recovery from typhoid fever, and in “The Education of Frank McCourt” he struggles with finding his own voice to suitable relate the story of his childhood on paper. These two stories are dissimilar in a way, too, because they are told from different perspectives. The first story is told by the boy who was actually there suffering from typhoid fever. However, the second story is told by a third-person that played no part in the story and is simply retelling it. While these two stories are quite alike, they are quite unalike as well.